Nottingham vs Safeale 05

I live in an area where there isn't much for HBS and can only get dry yeast locally. I have a Pale Ale that last time I used Danstar Nottingham and it turned out pretty good. I am planning on making it again but can only find Safeale yeast. I am wondering how similar is Safeale 05 to Nottingham yeast.

They are fairly similar to each other. Safale is more reliable though - Danstar has had terrible QA problems over the last couple of years.

ArcaneXor said:

They are fairly similar to each other. Safale is more reliable though - Danstar has had terrible QA problems over the last couple of years.

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Wow thats funny because i have had nothing but great luck with Nottingham and nothing but bad luck with safeale yeast in general. I always do a 30 day primary, and To be honest the batches i have checked that i made with Nottingham have ALL been at FG in 4 days or less. I have had 3 batches with 3 different safeale yeast that i had to pitch Nottingham in to get them to finish. Maybe just luck of the draw?

I have made great beers with both products.

Both will make good beers. Folks interchange them on my Haus Pale Ale all the time.

You can ferment both yeasts to neutral at the right temperatures. I recently tried the newly packaged Notty and with that package it will be obvious if something is wrong with the integrity of the package. In fact it is a much better system then Safale due to the Vac Sealing. At this point since I mostly like neutral yeasts I'd go whichever is cheapest at the time. Since my LHBS was out of both I bought some WLP001 last brew and made a 2L sized starter - this batch fermented out faster than both Notty & 05 for me.

Isn't 05 for American styles, whereas Notty is for British?

arturo7 said:

Isn't 05 for American styles, whereas Notty is for British?

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you have to ferment VERY warm with notti to get the "British flavor" I normally ferment notti at 78 and have never had an overly estery beer.

I find notty to be more estery while us05 is more clean. I ferment them both at the same temp in my fermentation chamber. both were at 66

So it sounds like Safele 05 will be a good replacement. With Nottingham I usually get an FG around 1.010 to 1.012. Will I get a lower FG with Safeale?

Vance71975 said:

you have to ferment VERY warm with notti to get the "British flavor" I normally ferment notti at 78 and have never had an overly estery beer.

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78f is that a typo?

Seems aweful warm to ferment anything other than a Belgian beer.

boo boo said:

78f is that a typo?

Seems aweful warm to ferment anything other than a Belgian beer.

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Nope, that is the temp in my room which is a basement room other wise it would be much higher lol. I will admit tho that i am a smoker and do not have a really acute sense of taste, so it could be that the esters are their and i am just not picking them up.

Safale 05 always does the Job for me, unfortunately Nottingham has left me dissapointed on more than one occasion & have since abandoned using it. When it did work as expected it was a good yeast but so is S05,which hasn't had the quality issues

I have used both of these fine yeasts for many years, and the S-05 will attenuate a little further under the same environment. Notty really gets its legs after the 3rd generation I have found, and will start bringing a little more of the English ale flavor forth. S-05 will stay quite clean yet at 3 pitches.

I've used both with good results but I actually prefer the Nottingham over US-05. Not that US-05 is bad or anything... I just think US-05 has more of a "yeasty" flavor to it.

Vance71975 said:

you have to ferment VERY warm with notti to get the "British flavor" I normally ferment notti at 78 and have never had an overly estery beer.

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Holy crap! I am fermenting with notty now for the first time and I thought their website said ferment temps from 55 to 70.

acefaser said:

Holy crap! I am fermenting with notty now for the first time and I thought their website said ferment temps from 55 to 70.

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Yes it does say that, I just have not got around to building a ferm chamber, and i do tend to enjoy more estery beers.

acefaser said:

Holy crap! I am fermenting with notty now for the first time and I thought their website said ferment temps from 55 to 70.

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Yes. And over 72 degrees, nottingham produces some pretty noticeable off-flavors. Not so much esters, although that happens, but some seriously foul flavor. But under 66 degrees, it's my preferred strain. At 60 degrees, notty produces a bright beer, with super clean almost lager like flavor. At 66 degrees, it's still pretty good but with slight esters. Above 72 degrees, it's fuselly and pretty awful in my experience.

On the other hand, under 64 degrees or so S05 will produce some "peachy" esters. Not bad, but definitely noticeable. At 66-70 degrees, it's very clean. It doesn't flocculate as well, and often the beer takes longer to clear than with nottingham.

I'd use either in an American ale, as long as I had fermentation temperature control. For notty, I'd go with 57-64 degrees. For S05, 65-70.

I can't believe the amount of threads you are in giving great advice Yooper. It's crazy how much time you spend helping others around here. Kudos to you.

I would echo what Yooper says, though I've had very good success with 05 in the low 60's. My experience has been that it produces a very clean beer at lower temps like that. It's my favorite yeast these days. Notty is right there as well.

I really haven't noticed a difference between the two. I ferment at about 68 for two weeks with either/or. They always work.

I like using US-05 overall. I like it because it gives a clean flavor even in the higher temperature ranges. I've fermented it as high as 80 and havent noticed any sort of fusel or off flavors. It does tend to hit the attenuation though but I've never had it be off by more than 4-8 points depending on OG.

Well I brewed my beer last night and used Safeale 05. It is in a room in the basement that is about 68 degrees. I hope to see some bubbling from the airlock soon.

Lots of good technical advice here focusing on the yeast, but lots of trees and no forest. It's true that different yeasts and different temperatures can have different flavor contributions, but most of those are just different, not good or bad.
I will say that the two yeasts are similar enough that I will usually try both of them when developing a recipe that I think will go that way. I have gone both ways in the end (I should know better that to write that sentence in this forum ). I have a very citrussy, hop centric IPA that is much better with Safale-05. I have a lighter ale that uses some 6-row and Saaz that is better with Nottingham.
I usually find that Nottingham ferments more vigorously and finishes about 0.002 drier.